Dinah, ClinkShrink, & Roy produce Shrink Rap: a blog by Psychiatrists for Psychiatrists, interested bystanders are also welcome. A place to talk; no one has to listen.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Remembering September 11th

One option was to let the day pass without a blog post. The other was to say something about the fact that it's September 11th, a day that left so many people so distressed. It was never an option to post on an unrelated topic.

I find myself pushing thoughts of that day out of my head, and then, periodically, I'm drawn to watching a YouTube video of the towers falling. Mostly, though, I've had nothing to say because what is there left to say? It was horrible.

My patients have not been talking about 9/11. They all want to tell me where they were during the earthquake that shook us a few weeks ago, and whether they lost power during Hurricane Irene. I'd asked a former guest blogger who lives in NYC if he wanted to write about 9/11, and he said he'd think about it and I haven't heard back. Another friend was standing under the towers when they collapsed. I asked if he'd like to write for a psychiatry blog and he said he'd been unable to write about it, perhaps in his memoir, and last year he left the country on the day. This was a tragedy that evades words and pulls us to places that are difficult to go. I want to thank David Hellerstein, again, for writing a guest post for us on Resilience in honor of the anniversary. When I first read his post, I liked it, but I thought it was about resiliency, and not the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Perhaps that is truly the best place to go as we all carry on with hope in our hearts.

And finally, I'd like to link to a memorial note for for my friend, Carlos DaCosta.

3 comments:

You know - it's interesting that you say it was never an option to post on an unrelated topic. I honestly did not want to write about it again (until I did, this morning) - and many people I know who were directly affected posted on their facebook about other unrelated things. I didn't post pictures from my bridal shower on Saturday because it felt somehow wrong to do that yesterday. My thank you notes are all addressed 11th September 2011, and even that felt somewhat wrong - like I should have dated them the 12th. Funny how it just feels a certain way.

I saw some footage over the weekend, and as they showed one of the planes about to hit a loud "NO!" was yanked out of me, at the horror of those people about to die.

On another note, the night before the one year anniversary, we went to an Alabama concert that was my Father's Day present (tickets were sold before Father's Day for that fall) because it was their last tour ever, though they weren't breaking up/retiring.

2/3 through the concert, they start singing America the Beautiful, and the audience rapidly stands up and joins in, and they encouraged this. But between a couple of the verses, and after the song, the often lead singer for the group pontificated too much about what we needed to do and remember as a country, and individuals.

It had been a beautiful, emotional, spontaneous for the audience, thing, but the ego of the band just came across so strong in what they said that it kinda soured it, a bit. I just thought, can't you just let a beautiful expression of unity, strength, patriotism, and remembrance, BE what it is, without politicizing it? UGH. My respect for them went down a bit, though I still enjoy their music.